Page 60 of A Spell of Bones and Madness (Nostos #2)

Chapter Forty-Eight

Kohl

G old chains clanged against each other from where they hung in Kohl’s outstretched palms. The metallic bindings were lighter than he thought they would be, feeling like nothing more than pieces of fabric dangling down toward the ground.

If he had not seen the cursed metal work on Ander in the dungeons of Alentus and beside him now on the most powerful goddess in Odessia, he would believe the myth to be a ruse, but Kora’s labored breathing echoing off the damp cavern walls were a clear sign the cuffs would do their task.

Thick red blood still hissed and sputtered against the cuffs Kohl attached to Aidon’s wrists and ankles—binding him to the equally auric throne the unconscious Grechi lay upon.

Snake bites lined his forearms and calves, forming patterns that wove into flowers and vines.

Blood poured from the wounds as the black creatures continued their work—never healing, not with the onyx, oily venom that dripped from their glistening teeth.

The mixture of the two liquids seeped into the stone below Kohl’s feet, heating against it before transforming it into that same power-absorbing substance that now bound both gods before Kohl.

Light so bright it could have been the fire of the sun itself pulsed out from Kora’s heaving chest, taking with it the radiant peachy glow that usually painted her skin.

In its place was left a pallid, ashen sheen, skin barely stretching over bones.

Her pleas still echoed in Kohl's mind, but he could not turn back now, not after what the vision had shown him—the ways his people would be tortured, the souls that would be stripped from them and corrupted into the power that fueled the Grechi.

Instead, he would destroy them—the beings that for so long ruled without balance, caring only for their own. His father had been right.

Kohl pictured the look on Katrin's face—because she would arrive within these tunnels, and soon, from the way the voices called to him.

Maybe she would regret choosing that insolent man over him now that her parents' lives were in his hands.

What would she think as she watched helplessly as Kora and Aidon were slaughtered?

Would she loathe him more than she already did?

Try to cut through the veil Hades had shrouded the dais in?

No magic, god-born or other, could break through that impenetrable shield.

She would try—Kohl knew that—and possibly extinguish all her power in her attempt to save the two broken beings before him.

Good riddance. Kohl hoped she drained her well of power, used every last drop when it did not matter so when the thysia was complete, when he was gifted his reward for raising his lord, Katrin would not be able to stop him from the one thing that mattered most. Killing the Prince of Nexos.

He would leave her with nothing, no one. Maybe then she would know how he felt these past months.

Picking up the humming bident, Kohl began to chant. The end was near for the Grechi. The fallen would rise.